Age-related changes in the neurophysiology underlying motor control are well documented, but whether these changes are specific to motor function or more broadly reflect age-related alterations in fronto-parietal circuitry serving attention and other higher-level processes remains unknown. Herein, we collected high-density magnetoencephalography (MEG) in 72 healthy adults (age 28–63 years) as they completed an adapted version of the multi-source interference task that involved two subtypes of cognitive interference (i.e., flanker and Simon) and their integration (i.e., multi-source). All MEG data were examined for age-related changes in neural oscillatory activity using a whole-brain beamforming approach. Our primary findings indicated robust behavioral differences in task performance based on the type of interference, as well as stronger beta oscillations with increasing age in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (flanker and multi-source conditions), left parietal (flanker and Simon), and medial parietal regions (multi-source). Overall, these data indicate that healthy aging is associated with alterations in higher-order association cortices that are critical for attention and motor control in the context of cognitive interference.

运动控制基础神经生理学中与年龄相关的变化已得到充分记录，但这些变化是否特定于运动功能或更广泛地反映了服务于注意力和其他高级过程的额顶叶回路中与年龄相关的变化仍然未知。在此，我们收集了 72 名健康成年人（年龄 28-63 岁）的高密度脑磁图 (MEG)，因为他们完成了多源干扰任务的改编版本，其中涉及两种认知干扰亚型（即侧卫和西蒙）和它们的集成（即多源）。使用全脑波束形成方法检查所有 MEG 数据是否存在与年龄相关的神经振荡活动变化。我们的主要研究结果表明，基于干扰类型的任务表现存在显着的行为差异，以及随着年龄的增长，右侧背外侧前额叶皮质（侧翼和多源条件）、左顶叶（侧翼和西蒙）和顶叶内侧区域（多源）。总体而言，这些数据表明健康衰老与高阶关联皮质的改变有关，而高阶关联皮质对于认知干扰情况下的注意力和运动控制至关重要。